


The Second Life of Kevin Tran

by AdelaClancy



Category: Supernatural
Genre: F/F, Ghost Kevin Tran, Post Finale, canonverse, ghost - Freeform
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-01-06
Updated: 2021-01-08
Packaged: 2021-03-16 18:48:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,610
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28586715
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AdelaClancy/pseuds/AdelaClancy
Summary: Kevin Tran wasn't in advanced placement. He wasn't a prophet. He wasn't a kid. He wasn't even alive.Kevin Tran had probably deserved better, he knew that. But it didn't do him much good now to spend time fretting about it. Instead he just waited for the inevitability of what being a ghost brought: Insanity.His once carefully strung together thread of thought would unravel more and more over time. Maybe when everyone he loved was long dead, maybe when they were still here. He didn't know which was worse, to be honest.But he comes to realize that untethered he has the ability and the knowledge to do what not many within the veil can do: help. Helping other ghosts move on to a place he can never enter gives him a small sense of purpose. With time, it would give him a lot more. A shot at a second chance, at friendship, at love, and at a family.
Relationships: Kaia Nieves/Claire Novak
Comments: 1
Kudos: 1





	1. A Higher Purpose

Kevin Tran wasn’t in advanced placement.  
He wasn’t a prophet.  
He wasn’t a kid.  
He wasn’t even alive. 

Kevin wasn’t anything. 

Kevin knew eventually the days would tick out for him and he’d be a shell of the person he used to be. But this ticking was from a very different type of clock than when he still had a beating heart. This time the timeline would be muddy. It could happen at any point. One day he'd just start to lose his marbles and not be able to pick them back up again. 

He also knew he wasn’t going to heaven. Maybe hell... again, but most likely he’d just go insane wandering the earth until there wasn’t an earth to wander anymore. 

After everything he’d been through, a little bit of insanity seemed okay. Freeing almost, in some way. He wouldn’t have to worry. Wouldn’t have to feel. He’d just be, and that would be that. 

That’s how he chose to settle it in his mind because if he thought about it any harder he’d think of his mom. His friends. All the people he’d never get to see again in this eternity because they’d be in a better place. Without him.

He spent so much of his living years worrying, fretting, scared. Thinking about the future and thinking about the consequence of every tiny action or inaction, even before those turned into life or death. 

He’d never let the idea of a future where he wouldn’t even have a future at all stop him from these worries. Maybe he should have. Sure, for awhile with Sam and Dean he thought every day could be his last, but somewhere inside he never really stopped holding out hope that eventually he’d be done and everything would be okay again. 

The ending where it wasn't was the one possibility he definitely should’ve considered more.

Hindsight 20/20 and all that.

Kevin had been wandering for a few months, seeing the sights, people watching. He thought maybe if he could sit around people and pretend for long enough, maybe he’d be able to convince himself he was really amongst them sipping tea in France or having a picnic by the Grand Canyon. Just in tattered, scorched clothing that he hadn’t been able to change in almost a decade. 

A few hundred years if you counted Hell. 

It wasn’t the same. Nothing was. Not just the fact of not being able to socialize with even a passing hello to a waitress, but the feel of the air on his skin, the scent of fresh goods drifting from a bakery, the clattering of his own feet on cobblestones. There wasn’t any of that, and it just reminded him all the more of what he was. What he wasn’t.

He played with the idea of returning home to see his mom but decided that would just be selfish. He knew Sam and Dean had told her he’d entered heaven, tossed there by God himself. The great blessing. It was better she believed the illusion and moved on with her life without being saddled with the truth. It was better she tried to be happy. It would be hard enough already with a dead son. Impossible with a damned one.

Instead, Kevin simply started wandering close by Kansas. He wasn't sure why, but the area gave him the most comfort. Perhaps because it was closest to where he'd spent his final months. It was where he’d died. Drifting in a familiar place was the closest to peace he might get.

He didn’t get the idea to actually do anything with his time until a scream pierced through the field he inhabited.

Kevin had been lying low by an aged farm in middle-of-nowhere Kansas, watching the cows huddle together at night for a cozy warmth while sleeping. He missed warmth. Touch. 

But the scream tore through the air and echoed across the fields for no one to hear but himself. This farm spanned miles, and even then this area was so rural there was probably only about a five percent chance anyone else would ever hear it. 

If a tree falls in the forest when no one's there to hear it, does it make a sound? If a girl screams where no one close can help or hear, does her scream even matter? It mattered to Kevin. 

Kevin booked it to the barn without a second thought, crossing through cows and fences along the way without a falter in stride. The lack of needing lungs definitely made running easier where it counted. 

The barn ahead was a rickety thing made of outdated paneling, thinning red paint flaking off the sides, and no light coming from inside. Kevin could hear the girl inside panting and crying, maybe to whoever had her in there. He slowed his pace just outside the door. It was a very human reaction considering he could walk through walls and no one would see him. 

He peered in through a crack in the door and saw a girl. Bloodied and crying with her head in her hands, she'd collapsed to the ground near the center of the old building. She was facing away from him, shirt in wet strips covering dark markings on her back. 

There wasn’t anything abnormal about the barn aside from the weeping girl. It just looked worn and abandoned, left to the elements a long time ago. Years probably. He peered around slowly, stitching through the barn door and toeing forward. 

“Psst” Kevin whispered, making himself visible just beyond the veil. No reaction. 

He continued forward, keeping his eyes adrift for any threat around. Maybe he couldn’t get hurt, but she could. And she didn’t seem like she was about to be able to defend herself. 

As he got closer, Kevin could see the scores on her back still bleeding a thick, dark liquid trailing down the length of her spine and soaking into the tattered remains of her shirt. Her shoulders shook as she rattled in a shaky breath, continuing to sob into her hands. She wasn't shrieking anymore at least.

Kevin reached out a hand to touch her shoulder but stopped, thinking better of it. He wasn’t entirely sure what humans felt when he touched them. Either it was an unnatural iciness, or it was nothing at all. Neither would be of comfort to this poor girl.

He retracted his hand, keeping it close, and took another peer around the barn. Still empty. 

“Hey,” he whispered. “Hey, I’m here to help. Who did this to you?” 

The girl lifted her head slowly, turning to Kevin. Her eyes were red rimmed and swollen, as though she’d been sitting crying for hours. She stifled another sob just long enough to draw her brows together, taking in his scorched appearance in confusion. 

“Who are you?” She asked.

“Um, Kevin. Listen, we should get out of here before whoever did that to you can come back.” 

“He’s not coming back.”

“How do you know?”

“He’s been gone a long time.” 

“Then what are you still doing here? We gotta get you to a hospital!” 

“I don’t think I can.” She sniffled, starting to cry again. 

“Hey, hey, it’s okay.” Kevin reached out, touching her shoulder this time. Except when his hand touched her... he could feel it. 

He pulled it away, almost like he’d been shocked. In a way he had. It had been a long time since he’d felt anything at all. This wasn’t like a normal human touch, though. There wasn’t any temperature. No cold, no warmth. Just pressure, and a kind of electric current. 

“You’re dead.” Kevin breathed in disappointment. 

She sobbed in response, letting out a primal scream and covering her ears, rocking back and forth stifling her cries unsuccessfully. For a moment Kevin just stood there, unsure what to do. She seemed to calm a bit as she rocked, but a selfish thought passed through his heart. 

This was what he’d turn into someday. Just some spirit without a name slowly unravelling from the inside out. 

He decided to sit next to her, just far enough that they wouldn’t touch, “What’s your name?” He prodded gently.

The girl looked up from her hands again, meeting his eye. Maybe she wasn’t as far gone as he’d thought. She scrunched her forehead in thought, peering around at the barn as though seeing it for the first time. 

“A-Anne.” She said, as though it were a question. 

“Nice to meet you, Anne.” 

Anne looked down at her feet, but didn’t respond. 

“I’m dead too, you know. It’s not so bad all the time.” When she didn’t respond, he continued. “I was killed, too. Awhile ago. Do you know who did this to you?”

It took her a moment to respond, seeming to pull together the memories and thoughts as she said them. “My daddy.” She paused, looking back at Kevin. “He thought I was a sinner.” 

It was Kevin’s turn to look down at his feet and he chuckled without humor. “Killing family isn’t a sin now? Must’ve missed the Bible update they released.” 

She smiled, but didn't say anything. 

“It wasn’t your fault.” He said. 

“It was.” 

“Can I tell you a secret?”

Anne met his eye, and nodded. She looked so young in that moment. Just a kid.

“I met God once. And he’s not anyone to look up to. I met a lot of people. A lot of monsters. Angels. Demons. And you know what they all have in common? They all do bad things. But some of them, even the demons, can always right the wrongs they’ve done if given the chance. So whatever you did, you weren’t given that chance. It wasn’t your fault.”

He placed a hand on her shoulder gently, and she leaned into it just a bit at first before collapsing into a blunt hug around Kevin’s middle. The tears were rolling again, she had more control over it this time, but buried her face in his chest anyway to muffle the ragged breaths. 

It was odd, feeling a person on you but not feeling them at all. It wasn’t much of a comfort to him, but he was grateful it seemed to offer her some. He moved to place a hand on her back, then remembered the wounds and settled on resting his chin on her head instead, arm dropping to his side. 

The sun was just beginning to peek through the spotted ceiling, showing just how torn down and worn this little barn had become. There was no hay lying about, and no tools or shred of a human imprint. A corner of the roof farthest from them had caved in at some point awhile ago, slotting a large ray of sun across the front wall with a pile of debris just below. 

“How long have you been here?” Kevin asked quietly.

Anne pushed herself back up, separating from him and wiping her eyes. The red rims seemed to be part of her now, just as much as the slices on her back. 

“I don’t know. Time doesn’t make much sense most days.” 

“I think it’s been long enough. You could move on, go to heaven.” 

Her voice was a whisper he almost couldn't catch, “You think they’d let me in?”

“Is that why you skipped out on your reaper?” 

She held up her head, but tears streamed again. How many years had she been crying here? 

“I didn’t want to go to Hell. I figured it would be better here.” She said, “I thought I could look over them, like a guardian angel. Prove that i could be good. But then they left. And they left me here.” 

Kevin’s own words from long ago echoed in his head. Similar to hers. Staying here would be better than Hell. Maybe he’d go crazy, but it was better than burning. That shouldn't be a fate that anyone else takes. He accepted it for himself. But others had a choice. 

“What was your sin?” Kevin asked abruptly.

“What?” 

“What was your sin? The reason you think you’d be taking the stairs down to the basement instead of the penthouse?” 

Anne shifted uncomfortably, crossing her arms over her knees and staring down at her toes. “I laid with woman. First daddy just whipped me and forbade me to see her. But I loved her. She was kind and good and she was the closest I’ve ever felt to another. I was foolish, so I saw her again a few times. Daddy caught us. He tried to hurt her so I hurt him. He brought me here, and made me pray for forgiveness until I was clean. He whipped me, and whipped, and whipped. But I didn’t ever feel dirty, not really. So I knew I wasn’t clean.” 

Kevin deliberated for a moment. He thought back to Sam, Dean, Garth, Cas, his mom. They were heroes. They always helped people that needed it. Always. He’d never be president or finish college or even get married, but he could do this. Maybe he was dead, but he could do something with what he knew. He could help this poor girl who wouldn't be able to help herself without him. 

“Anne, I’m gonna help you move on. I’ve been to Hell, and it’s not made up of people like you. I can promise you that's not where you're headed.” 

Anne’s eyes were guarded, yet hopeful. 

Kevin promised his return to Anne before he had to walk about a mile to the nearest house to find the supplies they'd need. Salt. Lighter fluid. Match. And a shovel. 

It took a lot of energy to lug all these items back, it was almost like being winded again. But Kevin liked it. He felt alive. He felt like he had a purpose. And it felt good to help someone again.

He shoved the crack in the barn door open just enough to toss the items through. Anne sat on the floor beneath an overhang, clutching her knees to her chest.

“I’m here.” She rubbed the loose boards beneath her feet. 

“He buried you inside the barn?” Kevin tried to hide the ache in his words, but wasn’t successful. 

“He pried up the boards, dug a little hole. Tossed me inside.” She was emotionless, just telling a story as though she'd seen it in a movie rather than lived it. This part didn’t seem to bother her anymore. Or maybe it was what bothered her most. 

Kevin didn’t say anything. He picked up the shovel and stood over her to offer a hand. She took it and stood too, backing up to give Kevin space while he pried up one board, then two. Three. Four.

Digging was easy. He’d never dug up a grave when he was alive, but imagined it'd have been hard work. Especially for the scrawny nerd body he'd had. He'd heard Sam and Dean talking about jobs like this. Seen them come home covered in graveyard dirt and exhausted, collapsing on their beds unshowered. Garth too. Most of the time he tuned out their hunt talks, but he’d overhear a lot without meaning to. Picked up a few tricks. 

“What makes you think this’ll work?” Anne asked, lining up with his train of thought.

“You could say I was roommates with a couple of pro’s once. Trust me, it’ll work.” 

Kevin tossed the shovel to the side when small, frail bones popped out of the dirt just a couple of feet below the surface. He gathered each one gingerly, putting them in a pile atop their resting place, and hopped out of the hole. 

First salt, then lighter fluid. He held the matches in his hand and looked at Anne who just stared at him expectantly. The red around her eyes had died down. Probably for the first time in a long time her tears were dry. 

How long had she been stuck in this loop? Not quite a death echo but may as well have been. 

“I-I’ve never done this before,” Kevin admitted, “So I don’t know how much it’ll hurt or how it works. Just that you’ll be in a better place at the end of it.” 

“I’d forgotten what it was like for a long time.”

“What?”

“Kindness.” Anne smiled for the first time, tears back in her eyes but not from a place of pain, “You’re a gift from God.” 

Kevin smiled back painfully. Right. A gift from God. 

He lit the match, and sent the girl to the one place God Himself made sure he’d never be able to go.


	2. What Remains

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Kevin considers trying his hand at hunting.   
> Claire and Kaia reunite.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As I’ve been working through this story it’s become about a lot more than simply Kevin. The wayward sisters are a primary aspect of this story and I think they’ll be a lot heavier involved than I’d thought before. This chapter focuses on the POVs of Kevin and Claire.

Was insanity inevitable? Kevin had thought so before but now he wasn’t so sure. Then again, he’d doubted the inevitability of his demise in the past and that sure worked out well for him. 

Did expecting the worst count as giving up? It probably did, didn’t it? Everything in his bones drove him against _that_ , though most days it seemed like the easiest path.

How long did it take for a ghost to lose their marbles? Was it will power or just a roll of the dice? 

He didn’t like doling with a lack of understanding of the ground rules and statistics. If he could figure out the statistical likelihood and probabilities, he could form a potential timeline based upon factors that drive to madness and factors that pull from the edge. 

If only there were some kind of study into ghostliness he could delve into and figure it out. He could start his own research, but what kind of time would that take? How much time would it waste?

First finding subjects of study... formulating a hypothesis... not to mention gathering information from the souls who’d already left the cuckoo’s nest would be near impossible. But even then, would that affect the study? Does a ghost talking to another help with waning away the insanity for that much longer? Or did it have no effect? 

In all likelihood it was a matter of complete circumstance. A series of trauma responses due to life and the nature of one’s death. Any time that he dedicated to this research would just move him closer and closer to the brink, so what would it matter in the long run? Hadn’t he wasted enough of his time on earth with studies? Who would he even give that research to? Sam and Dean? They’d simply look at him with pity and see him crumbling before their eyes into the pit of insanity. They didn’t need that on their shoulders. They already blamed themselves for his death for long enough. Especially Dean. 

His best course of action was action. If he was so worried about insanity, then he’d be best focusing on anything else. Helping Anne move on was something. He’d felt good about it. He felt like he had a purpose again and could do good again. 

He might not have had much choice in any of the things that happened to him leading up to his young death, but he had a choice in this. Even without his prophetness he could still do a little bit of good while he could. 

A ghost hunter, leading spirits back through the veil. Usually hunter only sought out vengeful spirits because they made a ruckus and killed and maimed while screaming their locations, but Kevin could help the rest. 

A lot of spirits were just lost. They needed purpose or simply help in moving on to the next life. They wouldn’t make themselves known enough to trigger a hunter no matter how badly they might want to leave. That didn’t mean they weren’t suffering, weren’t in need of help. 

He started with a forgotten boneyard on the outskirts of a small town somewhere in Nebraska. It was filled with the graves of those whose families had likely long left them decades ago. Any that would be stuck, were just stuck. Nothing else tethering them there. 

The cemetery couldn’t have been larger than an acre and was surrounded by a metal fence so rusted it might crumble if a tough enough grip were placed on it. The stones weren’t in much better shape. Most were unreadable and the rest overgrown with moss and wildflowers. It was peaceful in its own way. For someone who saw death as peaceful, maybe.

“Hello?” Kevin shouted into the empty air. “Anyone out there?”

He waited, and shouted a few more times.

This was a stupid errand. What was he gonna do, wander around all the boneyards in every state and hope to rescue a few people at a time? He might go crazy just looking for people to help. And he couldn’t help if they didn’t want to be seen in the first place.

He kept walking straight north. It was starting to get dark and lights just beyond the horizon paved way for a small town. Single road through, one diner, one post office, one of everything else. A small, small town. 

It was kind of picturesque in its own way. A hundred years ago it would’ve looked like something out of an old western, but now it more resembled a daytime soap. White picket fences, clean streets, warm lights lining the main square where groups of people wandered. Some were laughing or coupled up, others just going about their daily schedules and brushing past.

Kevin wandered down the block, cars phasing through him as he people watched. It reminded him a bit of Lebanon, but no matter how similar towns like this could be they always had their small differences. He learned a long time ago that the smaller the place you lived was, the more important the people you surrounded yourself with. In the end that was all that really mattered. 

— — —

Claire Novak had been running for as long as she could remember. Running from cops. Monsters. Angels. Her past. She’d been in the marathon for so long that she wasn’t sure if she could make her feet stop at the finish line, should she ever reach it. 

The closest she’d ever come was the day Jody called her back to Sioux Falls after a hunt with the boys earlier this year. For the first time in a long time she stopped in her tracks. 

Kaia was alive. 

Kaia was alive. Kaia was alive. Kaia was alive. 

She was out of her body. The drive back had been a blur of taillights smearing red across her vision for what felt like ten years and five minutes all at once. 

For the past two years Claire had made it her personal mission to hunt down and kill the thing that had killed Kaia. 

This whole time, she’d been alive. Stuck on the other side of the portal. “The bad place” as Kaia had called it. 

Jody’s patrol cruiser was already parked and cold by the time Claire pulled into the driveway. The house was dark, likely everyone already in bed. She didn’t know what time it was but didn’t pay much attention either. Claire barreled through the front door, tripping over a pair of boots left strewn on the tile a foot from the door. She cried out and tumbled forward into the recliner, barely able to see her own hand in front of her face. 

“Hell- would it kill anyone-.” Claire mumbled to herself, kicking the boots to the side and palming the wall for the light switch. 

“Claire?” Jody whispered from the stairs and switched on the light from the landing. 

Claire squinted at the sudden intrusion of light, “Tell me...” She couldn’t form the words. Her throat choked up and her brain went fuzzy and all of a sudden she forgot every word in the English language. 

Luckily Jody had learned to translate Claire’s silences by now. She toed down the stairs and threw her arms around Claire, holding her tight and rocking them both back and forth. Something a mother would do. 

Claire started to tear up, but held her breath to keep her composure. She wrapped her arms around Jody but held back from collapsing into the hug fully for fear she’d disappear in it. This didn’t deter Jody any. If anything she just held her tighter to compensate.

“We got her.” She said. “We got her. She’s alive. I gave her your bed. She’s sleeping, I think.”

Claire hadn’t known Kaia for all that long before her supposed death. But in this life you tended to form bonds with people a lot quicker than the average joe. Maybe it was because of daily doses of life and death, or that you skipped the formalities and small talk and went straight to something deeper. She couldn’t tell you. All she knew was she’d connected with Kaia right away, she was one of the first people she’d let in in a long time. Then she was dead. Until now.

It was another minute before Claire could respond. Her voice was hoarse when she did. 

“She can keep it as long as she wants. I’ll take the couch.” Claire squeezed Jody a smidge and untethered herself from the embrace.

“There’s leftover pizza in the oven. Might still be kinda warm.”

“Thanks Jody.”

“I’ll get some blankets from upstairs.” Jody smiled, and teased, “You, my lady, should wash off some of that stink. Do you _seek out_ motels with no working shower or is that just a part of your charm?”

Claire tilted her head to each of her pits and cringed. Pretty ripe. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

Jody made up the couch for Claire while she showered, and even went so far as to turn on the oven and heat up the remaining pizza slices before heading back to bed. Not that it was all that trouble really, but it was the little things. Those still got to Claire sometimes. It reminded her just how lucky she was to have someone like Jody who cared.

Claire had been standing in the kitchen staring out the window at the dark skies slowly turning pink, when the stairs creaked behind her. She swung around on reflex and gasped. The other girl gasped in tandem.

Kaia.

“Claire!” Kaia grinned all the way to her eyes. She had the kindest brown eyes, and despite everything she’d gone through they still held that same spark. 

There was a cautious nature to her step, though, Claire noticed. As though she was light on her feet at any given moment. Ready to flee. 

Kaia swiftly tapped down the rest of the steps and filled the space between she and Claire, stopping just short of reaching her. They stood, uncertainty heavy in the air between them. 

Claire realized she hadn’t said anything at all yet. She cleared her throat, still unable to take her eyes from Kaia’s, “I- I’m glad you’re okay.” 

She paused, losing her voice again, eyes dropping down to Kaia’s stomach. Images in her mind of the spear slicing right through there came so clearly she shuddered, “I’m so sorry.”

Kaia reached out and took one of Claire’s hands in her own, giving it a squeeze. She raised her eyes to Kaia’s again. Soft, kind, warm eyes. 

Before she could stop herself, Claire tugged Kaia forward and wrapped her arms roughly around the girl’s shoulders. She buried her face in her neck, letting her loose curls tangle with her own mussed wet hair. Kaia held on nearly as tightly, hands imprinting desperately into Claire’s back. Feeling each other’s skin beneath their fingertips, it was like they could finally breathe.


End file.
